Last week I and a few lovely earth lodgers went on a trip to the William Byrd farm. I have never done any farm work before so I did not know what kind of work to expect at first. However, the friendly lady there was very welcoming and gave us a brief history on the farm. I thought it was very interesting that the farm not only benefits the local financially disadvantaged people, the profit that the farm generates also goes into a day care for underprivileged kids. After giving us a tour around the farm, the lady there gave us a few projects to work on. The first project I worked on was to weed the farm land. “Here goes”, I thought, “4hours of pulling things out of the ground”. The part of the weed that is not underground was very yellow and at first I thought they were all dead. I questioned the point of pulling these dead weed out of the ground and wondered if there’s a easier way to do it. However, one of the workers name Matt stopped by and told us that we weren’t weeding the farm right. He said that these weeds all have very deep roots, in order to get rid of them, we had to dig as deep as we can and find the roots of the plant. I then tried and find the deepest root of the plants. The deepest root of the plants looked surprisingly fresh and full of energy; it is a light green color and when I first dig up every root, holding the deepest end of the roots made me happy for some reason. I think it is because the icy feeling of the root, or because I felt the energy of the root: I could still feel it growing and trying to stab deeper into the ground. I believe some people I’ve met in my life are just like these plants, they look like they are very unworthy on the outside, or maybe even not doing the right thing at the right place, but there’s always something admirable about them that we don’t see unless we dig deep into their lives and get to know them.
Weeding was not the only thing that shocked me that day, the trainer Michael got me thinking about life and what it’s all about as well. He talked about his background with me and CJ when we were weeding. He graduated from a prestige university inVirginiabut chose to follow his passion for nature and started farming. “I love my job”, he said, “I can’t imagine doing anything else”. He lives with his long term partner in the west end and he is perfectly content with his life. At first I was very confused with his decision, going into farming with a college education. I thought to myself, there is no way I will allow myself to live on a low pay, farming job when I graduate college. Then he explained that he was brought up in a farm and told us his passion for nature. After that I started to admire him, he has the ability to get all the money, political power, or whatever he wants in the world; however he told us that he was not brought up that way, and although some of those are nice to have, only pursuing your passion can truly bring you happiness. He has been farming for almost 10 years now, and still he is very excited when he talks about farming, even though I’m sure I was probably the thousandth person he had to explain farming to. Michael’s lifestyle differs greatly from the lifestyle that I am aiming for. However, he showed me how a simple lifestyle without all the luxuries can still be fulfilling with the help of passion and purpose.
I learned a lot from this farming trip to William Byrd farm and I really can’t wait to go there again.